Nicholas Spare | Contributing Writer
He’s arguably the most popular man in the world. On a recent trip to the Philippines Pope Francis drew record-breaking crowds, a feat which has become a common-place occurrence whenever the charismatic pontiff touches down in a foreign land. There is no doubting the fact that this Pope has found a way to connect with the faithful and unfaithful alike in a way that his recent predecessors never could. The secular establishment and media in particular have embraced him as hero, reformer, an example of humility and tolerance to be venerated by all. Criticism of the Pope by the secular-left is exceptionally rare. World leaders, including President Obama, who has made gay rights a centerpiece of his administration, are constantly singing the Pope’s praises. A prominent gay magazine even named Pope Francis as their “Person of the Year” in 2013. All of this baffles me. Let me explain why.
Criticism of the Pope by the secular-left is exceptionally rare. World leaders, including President Obama, who has made gay rights a centerpiece of his administration, are constantly singing the Pope’s praises.
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Pope Francis is a shrewd politician. He has managed to capture the hearts of people all around the globe and perpetuate the hopes of millions who are longing for change at the Vatican while not actually changing anything. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the charm of his humility. People were rightly impressed when he refused the opulence of the Apostolic Palace in favour of a modest apartment. We were rightly touched when he washed the feet of prisoners and rightly pleased when he infamously declared “Who am I to judge?” in response to a question about a hypothetical celibate gay priest. But what has he actually changed? And do his words really hold the meaning that is attributed to them by the secular media? For many progressives, Catholic and non-religious alike, Pope Francis represents hope that the Church’s militant homophobia is a thing of the past. This hope is dangerously naive.
When people point to Francis’s infamous “Who am I to judge?” quote in order to make the case that the Church under his direction is becoming more tolerant of the LGBT community, they do so dishonestly. Even if you can put aside the fact that the quote was followed by a full-throated endorsement of the Church’s catechism on homosexuality, which describes it as “intrinsically disordered”, the statement has been diminished to the point of irrelevance by his subsequent criticism of gay rights. Pope Francis has given speeches in which he has consistently recited the same tired Church talking-points about how gay marriage is a threat to children, but he hasn’t stopped there. Pope Francis has said that gay marriage is the work of the devil and “a destructive attack on God’s plan”. Just days ago the Pope publicly voiced his support for a referendum to re-iterate the existing constitutional ban on gay marriage in Slovakia. Gay marriage is already constitutionally banned in Slovakia so the referendum will change nothing in that regard, and is little more than a national exercise in gay-bashing. It does however include an amendment that would allow parents to opt their children out of sex education in public schools, out of the fear they could be taught that being gay is normal. In the context of the totality of his statements regarding gay rights “Who am I to judge?” sounds pretty hollow coming from a man who believes that gay marriage is literally satanic and doesn’t want kids to be taught that being gay is normal.
As a gay person raised in a very religious Catholic family, I believe too few people are aware of how destructive Catholic social teaching is to the mental and emotional health of gay children. Coming to terms with being gay is a difficult and emotionally fraught process even under the best of circumstances but is brutally crippling in an environment where you are told repeatedly that you are “disordered”, that if you fall in love with someone it will be a sin, or the one that stung me the hardest; that because you are so disordered you are incapable of properly loving anyone beyond mere lust. Catholic social teaching made me hate myself, destroyed my self-esteem, crushed my sense of self-worth and made me contemplate whether or not my life was even worth living. It also destroyed my family. My relationship with my parents, although cordial, is far from familial. My cousin fared far worse. When my aunt found out he was gay she stuffed all of his things into garbage bags and threw him out onto the street.
As a gay person raised in a very religious Catholic family, I believe too few people are aware of how destructive Catholic social teaching is to the mental and emotional health of gay children.
What has Pope Francis done to change any of this? The Pope’s much heralded “new tone” on gay issues, if it really exists, has been largely ignored by Cardinals, Bishops and other clergy who are supposedly subordinate to Francis. Priests all over the world are still preaching hateful things about LGBT people. And a highly anticipated Synod last year which was expected by many to be a first step toward meaningful reform concluded with a blatant rejection of any changes to doctrine. Even a document that made no changes to Church teaching but stated merely that “homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” was voted down amidst fierce backlash from conservative Cardinals.
No one is rationally expecting the Catholic Church to alter its long held definition of marriage anytime soon. I couldn’t care less how the Church defines its sacraments – that is the Church’s business, not mine. However, it is not unreasonable to expect and demand that the Church put an end to its corrosive anti-gay bigotry, stop referring to us as “disordered” and stop accusing us of posing a threat to children. Pope Francis has made no progress on changing any of these teachings. On the contrary, he has re-affirmed them. So I would ask simply that before you rush to proclaim Francis some kind of hero, stop for a moment and think about all the children in places like Slovakia, where the recent referendum took place, who are struggling to come to terms with the fact that they are gay and remember that it is Francis’s Church, under his direction, that is leading a public crusade to ensure that they endure a life of stigma, discrimination and social-ostracization. Is he really the hero the media have made him out to be?
